Rain and rain and rain, and as I watch buds are bursting open on the maples, grass blades are vibrating, and Strange Larry Bird is poised on the deck railing, cocking his crazy robin eye before once again flying into a window and scratching at it with his feet. All of the storm windows on the south side of our house are covered with Larry's scratches. Some misconception has snaked its way into his small head, and he has become obsessed with our house. Meanwhile, all the other robins are mating and laying eggs and plucking worms from puddles.

Poor Larry. He's a sad case, but he's also alarming. Du Maurier knew what she was doing when she turned a flock of birds into horror--if anything, her story is scarier than Hitchcock's film version of The Birds because she explicates a recognizable human revulsion against things that fly into our faces. A mosquito is bad enough. A robin is dreadful. Now imagine a seagull.